But only Mr Costolo and Mr Macgillivray are directors of TweetDeck. Mr Macgillivray is company secretary for both UK firms and head of corporate development at Twitter Inc.

TweetDeck's directors are now in the unenviable position of being part of the 0.9% of firms that fail to abide by regulations controlling UK businesses.

According to Companies House, more than 2.7 million firms are actively registered and 99.1% are up to date in their filings.

On December 10, Sky News revealed that both TweetDeck and Twitter UK had failed to file accounts by the pre-penalty due date of September 30.

Three days after the revelations Mr Rowghani signed annual abbreviated accounts for Twitter UK.

Those accounts were made public last week but only dealt with Twitter UK - not TweetDeck - between June 1 and December 31, 2011 and showed a profit of £16,500 on a total income of £484,723.

The filed documents showed Twitter UK accounts were audited by PwC and signed by a Dublin senior statutory auditor on December 17.

However no TweetDeck business accounts have been lodged with Companies House since Mr Dodsworth resigned in July, 2011.

Corporate solicitor Maung Aye, of Mackrell Turner Garrett, told Sky News: "It is particularly important for globally recognised companies to ensure that members of their group comply with any requisite filing deadlines set by the Companies Act 2006 and any other relevant legislation, to the extent it applies to them.

"What can be perceived by the directors as a relatively minor issue such as the late filing of a company's accounts, can potentially have very serious consequences including the directors of the offending company being prosecuted and ending up with a criminal record and the company being subject to a fine.

"Ultimately, the Registrar of Companies has the power to strike a company off the register if he believes it is no longer in business."

Companies House is also explicit in the duties expected of directors, whether they are Britons or foreigners.

"As an officer of your company, you are personally responsible for ensuring that you deliver your accounts and reports before the time allowed runs out," the business regulator explains on its website.

Twitter has recently prepared for an expansion of staff in its London and Dublin offices as it builds a multinational advertising sales team.

Plans include increasing revenue by "self-serve" credit card payments for advertisers, a system to root out spam adverts, and a programme to translate tweet feeds into more than 28 languages.

It is also creating a "media partnerships" team in Britain to cultivate wider use of Twitter by celebrities including "athletes, actors, comedians, musicians, etc".

Corporate insiders believe the speed of expansion of Twitter and a lack of communication between professional and legal advisers have played a part in its British business filing blunders.

Forbes magazine recently reported that Twitter is moving towards a public flotation in 2014 and could be worth more than $11bn (£6.8bn) to investors if it successfully monetises social media without disenfranchising users.

But it risks further harm if it fails to improve external perception of internal structures.

"This could mean a public relations disaster for the global brand with the adverse publicity it would inevitably receive," Mr Aye said.

"Shareholders and investors would certainly feel very uncomfortable by the thought that their company does not seem to be getting these basic requirements right."